James Bond, Big Fun & The Bubble

Big Fun : Fame was its Freebie

After school, we would not go home immediately, but would rather play in the ground till we fall tired.

As soon as the school Bell rang, the only thing that would flash in the mind was to grab the bag and run, the old fashioned bag with 2 pockets were all the school books, pens, pencils and notes were kept weighing more than 10 kilos. ha how many of you remember that, I dont know for sure but I do. still remember, while running the buckles would give up and all the stuff would fall down, including the BigFun rappers

We used to pick them, up put them back and run, run, run. Oh, my, this was life back then. who can forget all those things….007 Bubble-gum was the most popular brand from NP’s Bangalore, which captured my attention.

You go to any shop, you will find the one and only Gum at that time is NP 007. I have chewed a considerable of them trust me.

Big Fun’s claim to fame

Then came Big Fun a big hit, the product was pink, soft had a good taste and feel while you chew, you can also blow a bubble out of it. That became a great hit with the Kids of 80–90s.

Big Fun was one of the hottest selling chewing gums during 80’s. Of course the cricket world cup took the brand to new heights because of the linked promotion.

This product was launched on 24th October 1983 in Chennai and rose to fame post the first TV commercial on DD on the 6th of November 1983, before the Tamil movie in the evening. The demand for the product rose so high that the manufacturer was not able to meet the demand despite their best effort. No other bubble gum was selling at this time and the demand for Big Fun was intense.

The brand evokes lot of nostalgia in me and reminds me of the countless unforgettable memories. At that time the bubblegum market was at the early stage, no competition. It was this brand which initially created the bubblegum market in India.

Big Fun’s phenomenal promotional strategy

Big Fun was also one of the first brands in confectioneries to focus on sales promotion as the core promotional strategy. The brand initially started by offering the pictures of Disney characters to induce the kids. But the real tipping point came with the 1987 Cricket world cup.

Those were the days of Kapil Dev, Vivian Richards, Holding, Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Ravi Shastri and Mohammad Azharuddin. Focusing on cricketers, Big Fun ran a highly successful campaign. The brand offered a series of collectible pictures of cricketing stars inside the bubblegum wrapper. Along with the pictures, there were runs / wickets which the kids would collect and keep score. At the end of the sales promotion, the kids can exchange the scores with some kind of freebies like Cricket Bat and so on.

We were totally mad about these wrappers. We used to put 3 or 4 gums in a go just to finish it and get ready to open some more BigFun wrappers to see score. More than chewing the gum, it’s like seeing who got what ? whether its a 6 or a 4, or how many runs etc. The scheme was a super-hit. kids started collecting these pictures for the love of cricket. Favorite star’s picture was traded and kids began to buy the product for the pictures rather than the bubblegum. Big Fun entered into the market with good band wagon — “Big Fun Player Contest. “Every gum comes with a runs wrapper :) collecting 100 run and 10 wickets gets you a diary or a favorite players banner, for collecting 300 runs and 30 wickets you get a Cricket bat.

Big Fun stickers were a part of our evening cricket those days. We bought the bubblegum just for the runs (no-one was really interested in the bubblegum itself) unlike me, very likely many remember the aroma and texture of the newly opened pink bubblegum.

Big Fun’s : The real reason for the Brands failure

Despite Big Fun’s phenomenal promotional strategy, by the early ’90s, the brand started disappearing from the market. “While the exact reasons are not known ”.

Then the school officials realized chewing bubblegum creates lot of nuisance in the premise and literally banned its usage. This was a big set back to the demand for BigFun, which had a 400% margin at that time.

The real reason for the Brands failure was the freebies, I still remember after collecting 300 runs and 30 wickets, shops were designated all over India to trade off the collected wrappers, for the freebies, which were on offer, of what I remember was Cricket Bat. as soon as I saw the advertisement. I fixed my goal to get the Bat.

So every day. I would at least buy 3 to 4 gums and take out the wrappers to check the runs. every kid does it. it was like collecting stamps. you can find in every Duckback bag pockets a bundle of runs and wickets. Well, more than kids, parents also chewed the Gums, just to encourage their children’s to collect runs and wickets. those days. this was common picture, so every day. I would at least buy 3 to 4 gums and take out the wrappers to check the runs. every kid does it. it was like collecting stamps. you can find in every Duckback bag pockets a bundle of runs and wickets. Well, more than kids, parents also chewed the Gums, just to encourage their children’s to collect runs and wickets. those days. this was common picture in any shop during lunchtimes, every kid would run to the nearby shops to buy the Big-Fun Gums. later a booklet was issued to stick those Runs and Wicket to trade them of for Free stuffs

After sometime, word spread quickly that the freebies are being distributed to those who bring the finished booklet. since I finished collecting the Runs and Wickets, I took off happily in my BSA cycle for a 10 minutes ride to a particular shop in my area were the Products were given.

From far off, I could see the commotion and emotion all mixed together, children’s along with their mother’s standing in front of the shop, raising the voice with the Shop keeper. I also jumped into the crowd curiously to check the Gifts. slowly the shopkeeper took out a Bat, a cricket Bat just double the size of your Palm. Thats all, a smallest of the smallest. trust me, I never got disappointed like that in my whole life, till that point. I was totally disappointed. you cannot even keep that bat on a display shelf. such a low quality. if that’s so, think about other kids, both boys and girls I mean….

Big Fun: The brand that had a strong recall value

Big Fun could have given a better quality and if they had charged a little bit more money, lets assume, even a good quality bat in which you can strike a cork ball or a cricket stitched ball was only costing 80–100 bucks in those days. a normal bat would be some were 20–25 rupees only. they could have easily sold Bats with stickers signed by the Great Players by charging only half the amount along with the booklet with Runs, the more the Runs and wicket more the discounts. In a large scale, Pan India sales and marketing it would have been highly profitable business in both sense, with high margins of profit, they could have diversified the brand.. Incase if they would have done this, certainly without any doubt, a lot of them would have opted for this solution. parents would have definitely paid a little more for satisfaction and peace of mind. they would do anything for their Kids, cause the stickers signed by the players would have been a Huge. Huge Hit.

I came back home picking up a banner of my favorite player Kapil Dev, which I did not post it on the wall but kept it safely. at that time. I was just studying fourth or fifth grade, man, it was such a waste of time. I stopped buying the Big-Fun after that, It was such a bluff. that was the start of the failure for that Brand. It was entertaining in the first, but, later in the end disappointing. It disappointed not only the kids, but also the parents. they just made Fun out of everybody in the end. it was a real Big-Deal of Fun that day. Trust me

Again after a period of time , they came up with the same excellent idea with printed Runs this time in color. but I dont think anybody bought it. they just couldn’t create the same euphoria and the enigma, which was there in the beginning, slowly the brand went down.

Big Fun is yet another brand that has faded from the memory of consumers. Another sad story of a home grown brand biting the dust. Bringing the grind to a halt once and for all.